www.agp.org | Millau 2000: mobilizing against corporate globalization in France

Making History in Millau, France. (The context)
by a.zerty (spid) 2:05am Tue Jun 27 '00
a.zerty

Ywanadoo.fr

More than 50 000 people are expected in Millau this Friday as globalisation is put on trial.

"Yes, this action was illegal, Yes, this is serious, and that's why I assume full responsibility. The only regret I have now is that I wasn't able to destroy more of it.

These actions will stop when this mad logic comes to a halt." José Bové, spokesperson and founder of the French Peasant Confederation may not eat hormone beef, but he won't be eating his words when he stands trial on the 30th June, in Millau France, with 10 of his colleagues, accused of dismantling a McDonalds restaurant in the town. The action took place to protest against U.S. trade retaliation, imposing sweeping import taxes against Roquefort cheese and thus threatening local farmers livelihoods,

But this is no local farmers battle. World attention will focus on Millau (20 000 popn) as the town is transformed into the next act in the anti globalisation battle. France's "Mini Seattle" will see the world's media jostle to gain a place in the crowded courtroom, as outside tens of thousands of supporters from France and around the world converge on Millau for two days of celebration and support.

The defendants are not lacking in support. Attac, a rapidly growing association founded in 1998, in France to fight globalization and to campaign for a tax on international financial transactions that would be used to help the world's poor and fight social inequality are co-organisers of the event. They offer much of the intellectual inspiration and direction for the anti globalisation campaign there. During the trial itself a glittering array of international anti globalisation "stars" will appear in support of the defendants. These include Lori Wallach, Director of Ralph Nader's Public Citizen Global Trade Watch, the 2nd highest ranking Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Wallach dubbed the "trade debate's guerilla warrior" by the U.S. National Journal, is no stranger to France. In 1998 her article on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment in the influential Monde Diplomatique provoked a national controversy. Other witnesses include Bill Christianson from the U.S., National Family Farms Coalition, Susan George ATTAC France, Vandana Shiva from India, Rafael Alegria from the Honduras representing the global farmers coalition the Via Campesina or Paul Tran Van Tinh a former GATT negotiator for the European Union.

Locally the union movement are rallying round the cause against the judicial system and what is being called the rampant criminalisation of social protest. Indeed recently, and for the first time in French legal history a union itself, as opposed to individual responsibles are being prosecuted under French law. The first supporting witnesses in the trial will be French judge Gilles Sainati, National Secretary of the Magistrates Union who will denounce this trend for the grave consequences it has for any form of democratic social protest. In effect the French constitution is being called into question and put on trial.

The second key issue relates to a refusal of globalisation and here the answer may lie in the events in Seattle last November, and the curious outbreak of collective force which helped lead to the WTO fiasco. Bové was in Seattle helping to disrupt the WTO proceedings, making key contacts in the process. Spurred on by success the broad coalition of single issue movements have coalesced into something much more important. An anti globalisation, global coalition who, taking advantage of new methods of information sharing, networking and distribution offered by the internet, is capable of acting and reacting, out of the control of the "forces of order".

Bové, no slouch when it comes to new technology or use of the media , sees this movement gathering momentum as France assumes the Presidency of the European Union and events unfold over the summer. He maintains that "Globalization, is a planetary dictatorship, If you are not part of the market, you don't exist.” Nor is he frightened to continue his assault on McDonalds, one of the most potent symbols of the dictatureship of the markets, who have seen their stock value drop 20% over the last few weeks, affected by poor international revenues.. Speaking at a crowded meeting in Marseille, on 13th June, part of a nationwide tour to publicise his recently released book, "The World is not merchandise" and to gather support for the Millau demonstration, Bové claimed that the struggle goes way beyond mere economics. According to him McDonalds is nothing more than a front for the Church of Scientology, opening a new propaganda front by attacking a cult, already seen as one of the most dangerous sects in staunchly, anti religious France.

This powerful merger of interests against Global Food, and against Global Finance is set to gain new allies, and become more powerful, a phenomenon that the international media have not overlooked. BusinessWeek recently elevated Bové, this "sophisticated militant" into the ranks of the 50 "Stars of Europe". Sources close to the demonstration organisers say that among other major global networks, CBS will be beaming 60 minutes, live on the 1st July from Millau.

To counter the corporate media line, the weekend will also see the operational launch of the French Independant Media Centre, the latest in the growing network of webcasting alternative reporting centres, first set in motion by the global success of the Seattle IndyMedia Centre.

But maybe we should leave the last word with Bové, speaking at a previous trial he stated "Yes, this action was illegal, but I lay claim to it because it was legitimate. I don't demand clemency, but justice. Either we have acted in everyone's interest and you will acquit us, or we have shaken the establishment and in that case you will punish us."

Is this what they call a Win-Win situation for the Confederation Paysanne and the anti globalisation movement? Watch this space!

Live from Millau

We arrived in Millau on June 30th feeling like two tadpoles in a sea swarming with fish. Arriving with no foreknowledge of the event, we slowly realized that we were not alone. Many people of various ages and ethnicities attended. So what would bring 30,000 people to a small village of Southern France? While some say they are here striving to promote interdependence between nations, others speak of dependence within France. But one word continually resounds from the majority - globalization.

Globalization may sound like a word with a conclusive definition, yet no consensus has been reached. As the festivities wore on, many differing personal views on globalization were voiced. Marian Isler Beguin, an elected senator of the MEP belives in globalization but not in its current state. At present, globalization to her has meant the splitting of societies, separating the rich from the poor. Beguin would like to see globalization provide the people with four fundamental truths - democracy, liberty, prosperity, and free will.

By any means of transportation necessary, people from all over the world gathered in Millau to rally their support for Jose Bové, a peasant who speaks for the people. "Jose Bové's protest is the protest of a man who is against modernization and against things that are not natural.", says D'ordre, a 54 year old member of the CGT, a French confederation. D'ordre and many others who share similar views do not want to see France change to look and function like America. Many are here to support the belief that people come before money.

As an outcome of this gathering, some would like to see an end to the taxing of American imports in France. Claire Desenne, a 21 year old student in Paris is here today to support Jose Bové in hope that he will increase the value of French products. However, today has not simply been a day filled with political and moral inquiry. Many young adults when questions on their motives for attending this rally, could not come up with a concise answer. Pierre-Antoine de Butler, a 17 year old student from Iran, said that he was here mostly the have fun and attend the concert that featured bands such as Noir Desir and Rude Boy System. Although the concert seemed to be a lure for many teenagers, they all eager to learn more about the pulsating issues of today.

Other expressions of support for Jose Bové were occurring throughout the day. Starting at 10:30 in the morning, a band representing the Black Panthers and Mumma entertained the already immense crowds forming along the streets. Several people who attended today's festivities came also to protest against Mumma's fate; Mumma is a former Black Panther and has been sentenced to death for a crime many believe that he did not commit.

Though many opinions were brought here today, we all share a common goal - the support of Jose Bové, who not only represents his own people but his nation as a whole. As the day approached its end,Stephan Laffarage, a 29 year old teacher from Creuse, eloquently put that "Jose Bové is the first leader when you look for the truth."

weekly newsletter was put together by the « Sand in the Wheels »
newsletter

Yattac.org http://attac.org

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fighting french farmers -Globalization's arch enemy !!

José Bové, with his curved mustachios, his open grin, his small farmer's muscled arms, is one of "us" who still understands "them." He has made himself a bridge between the directly experienced and the distantly apprehended. He is the local internationalized. And thus his little local difficulty is now a global issue — and will continue to be, as we rocket on into new worlds.

Globalization's arch enemy - Since the Roquefort hit the fan, farmers in southern France have been fighting mad, says John Lloyd

John Lloyd,
Former editor of The New Statesman and Moscow bureau chief of the Financial Times, is now based in London.

Something important happened last week in France — a demonstration against globalization. Nothing new under that sun, of course. There have been demonstrations against globalizations aplenty in the past year, in London, Geneva, Washington, Bologna and, most famously, in Seattle.

Seattle, where the demonstrators as good as wrecked the World Trade Organization get-together, was pretty important. Why make a fuss about another one, especially since this latest protest was utterly peaceful, and it was in a small town, Millau, about 80 kilometres north of Montpellier in the south of France.

Millau is on a river, the Tarn, in which people swim of a summer's morning. The hills of the Larzac district roll into it, enfolding it in a pretty valley. The town is big enough to have cinemas, a theatre, a good library, bookshops where you can browse and cafés spilling onto every pavement, where the wines of Bordeaux to the west and Langedoc-Roussillon to the south are savoured. The sheep in the hills about it give the blue-seamed Roquefort cheese.

In this idyll, a number of ingredients came together, like the making of a dramatic French meal, to profoundly affect the direction of the debate on globalization. For in Millau, the local became global and the global local. The place itself produced a reaction rooted in the conditions of the people. And it meant that protest — easily represented as a bunch of anarchists smashing U.S. restaurant chains — had a solid base from which it could build a structure of thought and action that encircle the globe. The protestors of Washington, London and Seattle often were local — but their cities lived by the process of globalization. The people of Millau were suffering from it.

The place itself was the first ingredient. One of France's earliest cinema geniuses, Jean Vigo, made the film Zero for Conduct (1933), an anarchic vision based on the Millau boarding school to which he, a poor orphan, had been sent. There's a modest plaque dedicated to Mr. Vigo outside Millau's central cinema — which was showing the latest U.S. version of Roman history, Gladiator, when I was there.

In our own times, one of the longest-running and most successful actions against the French state occurred just north of the town, when farmers and others opposed, throughout the 1970s, the extension of a military camp in the Larzac district. They won in 1981, and pride in the achievement is part of the local lore.

The second ingredient is Roquefort. The strong, tangy cheese made from sheep's milk has been a staple for centuries; much of it is exported, with rich markets in the United States. Last year, the U.S. government slapped 100-per-cent import duties on a range of foods and products in retaliation for European Union bans on genetically modified foods. Roquefort was one such product. And José Bové was one Roquefort producer. The individual in this case has a history of protest, and is the strongest ingredient in the recipe.

Mr. Bové, now 47, is no ordinary "peasant" (as he likes to call himself). Indeed, he is full of contradictions. The man who opposes the latest scientific breakthroughs in gene technology was the son of scientist parents; he who now leads a movement against Americanization spent his earliest years in the United States, when his parents were at the University of California at Berkeley.

But he was always a rebel. He objected to military service, writing a precocious teenage letter to the Minister of Defence detailing his objections. On the run from the police when he failed to get an exemption, he came to Larzac. His military service commuted to community work, he stayed to become a sheep farmer. He was one of the leaders of the protest against the camp extension and was a militant anti-nuclear protestor, especially against French nuclear tests in its colony of New Caledonia.

But it was the smashing of "McDo's" last year which gave him world fame. He was one of the organizers of the Confederation des Paysans, which brought together small farmers badly hit by price cuts and the growing power of French — and international — agribusiness. The Roquefort cheese embargo was the last straw: A few hundred of the producers marched on the building site on the southern periphery of the town where the latest McDonald's was going up. According to Mr. Bové, they had a "festive deconstruction" of the partly built restaurant. In the words of the local franchisee, it was a "wrecking party."

Mr. Bové was charged which malicious damage and put in jail: He refused to post bail and stayed in longer than most of the other nine militants charged with him. He knew — and openly admitted — the value of being photographed in manacles and issuing statements from behind bars. He had struck a blow for the people of the Larzac. More — he had, as a Frenchman, taken on the power of the most visible of the U.S. multinationals (never an unpopular posture, in this, the most prickly of European countries on the subject of American hegemony).

The French have made up a word, "malbouffe," or "bad grub." Fast food of all kinds is "malbouffe" in a country — and in a region — that takes its eating and drinking seriously and which recognizes that food has to be both slowly made and slowly enjoyed.

Thus any "restaurant" that lays down to its staff that every hamburger must be cooked for no more nor less than 43 seconds, and whose customers often seem to be competing to see how much food they can cram into themselves in the shortest time, is a standing affront. To choose McDo's as the symbol of Americanism, globalization, oppression and malbouffe was thus both natural (what else was more visible?) and inspired (what else drew together more strands of French public and private life?)

Two kinds of freedoms were at issue. The supporters of José Bové, who descended on Millau in their tens of thousands last weekend to be present at the trial of Mr. Bové and his nine comrades, carried banners saying "Le Monde n'est pas une marchandise" (the world is not for sale — also the title of Mr.

They also carried placards saying "No to liberal globalization" — a protest against the free-trade policies that, they believe, favour the strong and especially the U.S. against the weak. They hate the World Trade Organization, which promotes free trade and whose meeting in Seattle last year was the focus of the protests.

Indeed, they see this find of "freedom" as oppression — oppression of customs, or ways of life, of jobs, of culture. That which governments and corporations see as a liberal world, they see as a dictatorial one — the dictatorship of General Motors, run by IBM, entertained by Hollywood and fed McDonald's and Coca-Cola. The Millau fiesta was a fusion of all of these anxieties and hatreds and losses. It was the cry from the heart of a state that sees itself as the guardian of a way of life: which genuinely, at every level, thinks that America can be evil.

The trial of José Bové and the "McDo's 10" will not bring in a judgement until later this summer. I left Millau on the overnight train to Paris and whiled away part of the night with a teacher who was travelling from Montpellier. He was a careful, measured man in his 50s, who sternly took Mr. Bové to task for an action that was violent and showed no respect for property. "Do I then burn the books with which I don't agree?" he asked. But he also observed: "Bové expressed something real. It should be expressed.

I see in my pupils, at times, a terrible passivity: a desire to do no more than watch TV and play computer games. I thank God my children grew up and went to university before computer games, which are all violent, and all American, even when they have French soundtracks."

It is a new version of the old (American) truth: that all politics are local. But it has a new twist. Local politics are now global.

Nowhere — not the rural peace of Millau, nor the ruined factories of the Ukraine, nor the humming software plants of Ireland, nor the coffee fields of Kenya, nor even the hungry collective farms of North Korea — is now untouched by half-understood processes happening far away, incomprehensibly and out of all control, even by one's own government.

John Lloyd, a former editor of The New Statesman and Moscow bureau chief of the Financial Times, is now based in London.

Original URL: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/gam/Commentary/20000705/COLLOYD.html

The world is not for Sale. Neither am I.

July 13, 2000

Global Citizen

Le Monde N'est Pas Une Marchandise. Moi Non Plus.

The World is Not For Sale. Me Neither.

by Donella Meadows and Hal Hamilton

Jose Bove milks 250 sheep in the Larzac region of France, a rocky, windswept place where you would think no farmer could produce anything. But Bove turns sheep milk into one of the gastronomical treasures of the world, Roquefort cheese. Bove is a leader of the local Roquefort producers association and of the second largest farmers' organization in France. So he was well known locally before he and nine friends drove their tractors to the nearby town of Millau last year and pulled down an under-construction McDonalds restaurant. Now he is well known globally.

Bove's beef with McDonalds began with America's beef industry, particularly its habit of dosing feedlot cattle with the kinds of hormones that athletes are tempted to use for the same reason — to bulk up fast. Europeans are disinclined to eat this high-test meat. The European Union forbids hormone-raised beef, either domestically produced or imported. That makes the American beef industry, and the government officials to whom the beef industry pays large campaign donations, very angry.

Now that we have a World Trade Organization, we have an official way to resolve such conflicts. WTO resolutions nearly always come out in favor of trade, no matter what its social or environmental or cultural or health consequences. It was no surprise when the WTO declared the EU ban on hormone-raised beef illegal.

The EU refused to lift the ban. So the WTO imposed the only punishment within its power. It allowed the U.S. to slap retaliatory tarriffs — high taxes imposed at the border — on French products. One of the products thus affected was Roquefort cheese. Which made Jose Bove and his Roquefort-producing friends very angry.

At their hearing on June 30 at least 50,000 people jammed into Millau for a political demonstration equivalent in purpose to Seattle's anti-WTO bash six months earlier. In the crowd's estimation, if not the court's, Bove is a hero. The T-shirt seen all over the streets said on the front, in a direct quote from Bove, "Le Monde n'est pas une marchandise." (The world is not merchandise, not a product, not for sale.) On the back it said, "Moi non plus." (Me neither.)

Bove's supporters are by no means only French. The American media tend to frame stories like this as a confrontation between French and U.S. farmers. But American farmers actually donated to help with Bove's legal expenses. One farmer responded: "A few of us were standing around our co-op this morning wishing we had some way to help those French guys, and now we have your email we're glad to send some money so we can have some small part in this."

The Millau Ten were found guilty — they readily admitted that they pulled down the McDonalds. They are free until their sentences are announced in September. Because Bove has a prior record for struggles against the French military and against genetically engineered crops, he faces months in prison.

Bove's home hamlet of Montredon is tiny; maybe 6 or 7 families live there. You would expect its Wednesday evening farmers' market to be a small affair. In fact hundreds of people typically show up to shop for vegetables, fruit, preserves, cheese, meat, wine, ceramics and leather goods. Jose and a couple of other guys fire up a barbecue where everyone brings meat to grill. They sit around eating and drinking, and then the music starts. There's a small play. It's not possible to distinguish producers from consumers; many folks are both. This is a community.

Somehow, over centuries, people have learned not only to make a living in the sparse Larzac, but to make a rich life. Jose Bove chose a brilliantly symbolic act to compare the quality of that life with the antiseptic arrogance of MacDonalds. He was protesting more than the injustice of taxing French sheep farmers to force European consumers to accept U.S. mass-produced beef. He was protesting the whole idea that has come to be called globalization.

In a culture dominated by the bare logic of market exchange, everything becomes commodified, including our time, our intelligence, our landscape, our water, our food. Jose and his neighbors are saying no, that's not what we want. No, we refuse to be sucked into that system. We insist that our value to one another and the value of our land and lives not be measured in dollars or francs. We insist that the World Trade Organization not be granted the power to force us to eat food from factories. We insist that community, culture, taste, work, and nature are more important than cheap food or free trade. We insist on protecting our traditions from the narrow, heartless economics that would have us fill our lives with things produced wherever they can be made most "efficiently."

Written with Hal Hamilton, Director of Sustainable Agriculture, Sustainability Institute

Pat Rasmussen
prasmussen

Yigc.apc.org
PO Box 154
Peshastin, WA 98847
Phone: 509-548-7640

Millau, premier bilan critique

[pardonnez quelques erreurs des typos dans ce texte s.v.p., qui est arrivée chez-moi dans un état très mauvais]

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A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
http://www.ainfos.ca/
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Millau : premier bilan critique
par le Cercle Social

Du point de vue pratique

Il faut reconnaître que l'organisation était impressionnante, malgré des problèmes au niveau sanitaire (pas assez de W.C., de poubelles,...). Il faut remercier les militants qui se sont dicarcassis pour mener ce travail crevant (navettes, sécurité, santé, ravitaillement, technique, installation des lieux de campings, etc.). Tout avait été congu pour être festif, ce qui est certes sympathique, mais qui a eu tendance à prendre le pas sur l'aspect militant. Une bonne partie des prisents ne sont venus que pour le moment des concerts. Ce serait se leurrer que d'affirmer le contraire. La solidarité entre participants n'a pas toujours iti brillante: il était par exemple très difficile de revenir en stop sur les lieux de camping, alors que de nombreuses voitures partaient quasiment vides. C'est un problème de fond car le militantisme devrait être fondê sur l'entr'aide.

Cîté nourriture, il n'était pas facile de trouver de quoi se nourrir correctement pour les végétarien-ne-s, et à peu près inémaginable pour les végétalien-ne-s (jeûne et continence !).

Du point de vue politique

Nous n'avons pas beaucoup eu de temps pour voir les forums, mais les programmes semblaient largement trustés par les soc-dem de tout poil. Il aurait sans doute été possible, par un travail commun entre organisations, de proposer d'autres forums sur des bases plus libertaires.

De nombreuses organisations libertaires et/ou conseillistes ont participé et tenu un stand : FA, CNT-AIT et CNT " Vignoles ", Alternative libertaire (France), OCL, No Pasaran, écologie sociale, Révolution Internationale, sans compter les camarades espagnols de Ecologistas en accion, dont un représentant est intervenu sur un forum. Ce qui semble dommage, c'est que malgré cette importance numérique, il n'ait pas été possible de proposer une véritable alternative, voire une contre-offensive à l'étalage de mièvrerie attacienne qui s'est imposie à la tribune. Ainsi, entre chaque groupe du concert, les témoins du procès ont déballés leurs positions. Outre de nombreux propos nationalistes " de gauche ", on a pu entendre un syndicaliste polynisien expliqué qu'en France, il avait découvert " le bon vin, la bonne bouffe et les femmes ". No comment... Cela relativise un peu plus encore la portie de la " marche des femmes ", dont une représentante venait de parler. Au même moment, l'un des dessinateurs de Charlie Hebdo montrait sur grande écran une " Arlette Laguiller " des antipodes sous la forme d'une vahiné... Chauvinisme et sexisme au programme !

Il faut également noter la présence massive du groupe trotskiste " cliffiste " Socialisme par en bas, qui avait dû ramener l'ensemble de ses militants, très jeunes pour la plupart. Ils avaient au moins quatre stands disséminés sur le parcours, vendaient un T-shirt rouge porté par tous les militants et diffusé massivement, faisaient des pièces de théâtre, et ont même terminé le samedi par une mini-manif (suivis par Chiche, qui réclamait pour sa part des... cannabistrots). Une organisation solide, volontariste (à la limite du boy-scout...), mais sur des positions particulièrement délétères, une soupe froide vaguement teintée de marxisme. L'essor de ce groupe est donc à étudier... (rappelons qu'il s'agit de l'ancien Socialisme International, disparu après avoir été infiltré par l'extrème-droite).

Les catholiques étaient présents : l'Arche, la JAC et Golias.Pas d'autres groupes religieux, sauf quelques sectes qui distribuaient des tracts. Le PCF et la CGT (qui participait au SO) étaient bien représentés, ainsi que les Verts. La participation aux cêtés de partis gouvernementaux n'est pas sans poser problème. C'est sur ce point, autant que sur la critique des positions étatistes et patriotardes d'ATTAC, que les libertaires auraient pu intervenir sur une base commune. Cela aurait été un bon moyen de faire entendre une voix divergente au discours linifiant de la gauche attacienne.

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Tract diffusé à Millau:

Le monde n'est pas une marchandise...
.. les animaux non plus

Peut-on continuer à lutter contre les semences d'OGM sans étendre ce combat aux élevages en batterie ? Quand on dénonce la marchandisation du vivant, il faut garder en mémoire le fait que les nouvelles biotechnologies (clonage, modifications génétiques) sont en fait la continuation logique de " l'amilioration " des espèces domestiques depuis plus de deux siècles. Sous le couvert de la " supériorité de l'espèce humaine " sur les autres animaux, on justifie en fait la recherche d'un profit maximum, l'esclavage, la torture et le massacre quotidien de millions d'êtres vivants. Les victimes de la vache folle et des autres ipizooties à l'échelle planétaire, ce ne sont pas seulement les humains contaminés, ni les animaux malades, mais aussi les millions d'individus abattus simplement parce qu'ils risquent d'être eux-mêmes atteints. Comme si, chaque fois qu'un enfant est atteint de miningite, on massacrait toute l'école ! L'élevage industriel est un reflet concentrationnaire du capitalisme. Toutes les humiliations contre lesquelles les travailleurs humains ont lutté depuis plus d'un siècle y est appliqué sans entrave. Le productivisme, la logique de rationalisation du travail, le contrôle des individus y sont poussis à l'extrème : les industries en arrivent à arracher le bec des poulets pour éviter qu'ils ne s'entretuent lorsque leur concentration au mètre carré est trop importante... Privation totale de liberté, de vie sociale, d'espace pour se mouvoir, dopage permanent, euginisme, sexualité contrtlée et mort programmée. Les animaux ilevis en batterie, ou utilisés pour les tests laboratoire, sont les travailleurs les plus exploités du monde. Jusqu'à la moelle, oserait-on dire... Est-on obligé de manger de la viande à tous les repas ? Il ne s'agit pas de culpabiliser les ileveurs ou les bouchers, mais bien les trusts agroalimentaires qui prospèrent en encourageant ce mode d'alimentation et qui, pour y répondre, pratiquent l'élevage dans les conditions les plus ignobles. Le monde n'est pas une marchandise, les animaux, non plus !

Millau:

mobilizing against corporate globalization in France

Making History in Millau, France